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A couple of weeks ago a 2 hour queue up the stairs and out the door put me off venturing into this new Soho pit. If it wasn’t for social media you’d never know this restaurant existed. There’s a non-descript door, nothing else to tell you this is a restaurant. But social media does exist, and so if you don’t want to queue you have to turn up at an unsociable hour to guarantee a table.

Everything in the restaurant is bang on trend- paired back brick walls, uncomfortable wooden school chairs, a minimalist food menu, a choice of ‘craft’ beers that you’ve never heard of unless you’re a bearded tosser who grows your own hops…you know the type of place. Blacklock offers chops. Nothing else. At least you don’t have to waste time reading the menu. Chops it was then. The All In option at £20 a head gives you beef, pork and lamb, along with a ‘starter’ if it can really be called that. 6 uninspiring little crackers come on a plate- egg and anchovy, cheese and pickle and ‘filthy’ ham. They are what I would imagine an amuse-bouche from Iceland would taste and look like. They might as well do away with them.

Next up is the plate of chops with a couple strips of bread underneath soaking up all those meaty juices, which turned out to be the best bit. What more can be said other than they were simply done, tasty chops. Plenty of fat, plenty of flavour. A bit too heavy on the salt, but then at £5 a cocktail who cares if it forces you to drink more. The sides of kale with parmesan and burnt baby gems were tiny, were not half as good as they sounded. Too small and a bit bland. We threw a 10 hour ash roasted sweet potato- which is basically burnt sweet potato with its flavour cooked out of it- what’s wrong with thirty minutes in the fucking oven? The small pot of chilli hollandaise was bloody tasty but only enough to lather one chop.

For dessert it was white chocolate cheesecake with rhubarb. No complaints here. Just like in Chicken Shop with the world’s best apple pie, they slap it in your bowls from a huge dish. Means you get a nice big helping. This was probably the high point of the meal.

Overall it felt like a bit of a let down. All the hype and queues had made me expect great things. I’d hoped for a big hearty meaty meal. Instead it was some Riveta crackers and some decent chops. Maybe the hype has already died down a bit, as although it was full, there was no queue when we left at 7.30. It just feels like it is trying far too hard to be individual. They can keep the chops, but a little more attention elsewhere on the menu wouldn’t go amiss. The bill came to £75 for the two of us, with a couple of cocktails and a couple of too hoppy pale ales- not exactly expensive for the area, but it didn’t make me want to rush back.

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There’s plenty of good Spanish food in London, but you must be prepared to empty your wallet to get your fill. Those addictive little toothpicks and endless tapas dishes soon add up to a hefty bill. But when it is done well, there are few more enjoyable meals to be had. It’s also the home of small plates, something London is obsessed with at the minute. Just about every new restaurant is jumping on this small plates band wagon, which is fine if the dishes naturally merit being shared, but as was the case with Social Eating House recently, pearl barley or a fillet of turbot were not really ideal for passing across a table. The Spanish have perfected this style. The food is easy to share, and it all combines to make a meal feel like an event. It is something that brings people together to chat and take their time with plenty of wine over a long evening. We might not yet be able to relax in a London restaurant, but at least we have managed to capture the vibe of these little tapas bars. The pick of the bunch are Jose, Morito and Barrafina, which usually mean queuing up to get your arse on one of the few cramped seats. If this isn’t for you, then there is also more serious Spanish dining to be had. For those who like to turn up for dinner at the right time without the anxiety of getting a seat. The Salt Yard group and Fino fall in this category. The food is just as good, and you’ll not have somebody hovering over your shoulder waitng for your seat. But the downside, it that they just aren’t as fun.

Tonight it was Fino, the older sister of Barrafina, now in its tenth year of service. It’s a much maturer restaurant, with an older more suited clientele. Tucked in a classily decorated basment just off Charlotte Street, this is all about starched napkins and a thick wine list, rather than stuffing food into your mouth with your fingers and sloshing down bottles of beer. The food is what does the talking though, and the dishes, just like the service, have been perfected over time, making it a consistently solid experience. There’s none of the experimentation you might find at other Spanish restuarants across London, just tried classics that are simply presented and taste great.

Everything is done well here, right down to the pan con tomate (£2.80 per slice) which comes on a thickly sliced lightly toasted slice of bread with chunks of fleshy Spanish tomato and plenty of salt.

The manchego cheese with membrillo (£6.80) was a bit underwhelming, mainly because of size of it. There was no real bite to the slices of cheese, and so the flavour didn’t come through as much. I had a similar dish at Morito, but there they grilled the manchego and gave a much bigger chunk.

The tortilla is unrivalled in London. It’s better than most of the tortillas I’ve had in Spain. With strong chorizo and aioli (£8.60) combining with the creamy egg that bursts out the perfectly crisp outer shell of the tortilla this is as good as it gets.

The stuffed courgette flowers were the star of the show tonight. They outshone the same I had at Smokehouse earlier in the month. The balance here between the sweetness of the honey and the strong hit of goat cheese was perfect. The batter was so light that a gentle press of the spoon caused the cheese to ooze out. Simple and perfect.

The calamar en tinta (£8.90) was a stuffed baby squid, cooked in the ink. Again a solid dish that leaves you with a jet black smile.

The grilled quail (£8.50) had been butterflied and had a crisp salty skin, but it needed a kick from a sauce to give it a punch. Maybe some romesco, or even just a hit of garlic or lemon to bring it to life.

The grilled pork (around £13) was served pink and had a lovely deep meaty sauce with plenty of paprika, garlic and chorizo that combined perfectly with the sweet garden peas.

To finish I had the torrijas (£6.5) which is a slice of bread that has been soaked in milk with honey and spices, which has then been fried and came with a scoop of rich vanilla ice cream. It as really sweet, but it was hard not to love these ingredients working together.

It was a really enjoyable meal, but there’s not much value for money to be had at Fino. £5.40 for a bottle of Estrella is pushing the boundaries of what I’m willing to pay. As is £7.80 for one courgette flower no matter how good it tastes. With a bottle of Calcari (£33) the bill shot up to the £70 per head mark, which makes this more of a special occasion or expense account sort of place, rather than a casual bite after work. Even though the cooking was just as strong, Barrafina remains my pick, even if it is a struggle to get a table. It’s just a lot more fun than this, and that’s what tapas should be.

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Smokehouses are the in thing at the moment. We aren’t quite at that burger phase yet, but Londoners are really hot on their smoked comfort food. With Big Easy Covent Garden and Smokehouse adding to my yearly summer gut in recent weeks, tonight it was the turn of One Sixty to add on the pounds. It was the first time I’ve been to West Hampstead, mainly because I didn’t expect anything to be cramped between Kilburn and Finchley Road, and so it was about the last place I expected to find a trendy high street lined with nice bars and restaurants.

One Sixty fits the vibe with it’s scruffy-chic black walls and school furniture. This is the bed-hair of restaurant decor. By that I mean it looks like it has just been thrown together with no effort, but really, as with all those Southern tosser students who plagued Newcastle and sent me south, it is all very deliberate. A lot of time goes into making something look this way. Why? Well that’s another matter. This sort of style is the fucking toast of London at the minute. Some bastard must have seen it working in New York and brought it over to plague our shores. Please London hurry up and get it out of your system. There’s only so many splinters in my arse I can take during a meal.

What makes up for the splinters is the beer list. This will please any craft beer fan. There’s plenty of local stuff, all the American heros, and some micro breweries I haven’t come across before. This all makes for a cracking tasting session as you work your way through dinner. It also fits with this whole hipster/Yuppie vibe, in other words for those pretentious bastards (me included) who pride themselves on knowing their IPA from their standard pale ale. From being able to comment on the level of hops. It sure as hell is an elite crowd to be part of.

The menu keeps things simple with a few starters/side nibbles to go alongside belt-slackening classics. If you aren’t licking your chops at the prospect of 8 hour smoked ox cheek or pork ribs then you’re nobody I want to know. We settled for some cracking little hot wings (£6) that had enough heat and an addictive sour, salty and cheesy dipping sauce. A mac and cheese was good, but not sticky enough for me, and it could have done with some crumble on top to give extra bite.

Then it was time for the Smoked pork ribs (£14) that really were smoky. They had a smokers-jacket taste to them, and I mean this in the best way possible. They were like having a cigarette at the end of a drinking session. Something you crave again and again no matter how bad it is for you. Plenty of salty goodness and enough pink meat to get stuck in all your teeth.

The Smoked Lamb (£17.50) we liked less, but only because it was all a bit neat and tidy, and a little small when compared with the ribs. Thought had gone into the presentation, and even though the meat was delicious, it was just a bit precise for the type of food I was after. Stick to the ribs and you can’t go wrong. A side of mash and gravy and chips (£4 each) were spot on, and needed to fill you up.

To finish we shared the drunken banoffee jar (£5) which was a bit of a lightweight on the booze but bloody tasty regardless. I’d have wolfed 3 of them no bother.

The bill came to around £35 a head with a couple of great local beers and a solid smoky meal. If this is the new craze London is getting off on, then I’ll be one happy punter.

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When I think of southern soul food, I imagine a greased-up, smoky shack serving huge sloppy portions. Something like Freddy’s from House of Cards. A guilty pleasure sort of place where you get your fingers dirty. The Lockhart couldn’t have been further away from this. Set just off Edgware Road on a trendy little side-street it is clean white walls and chic vintage furniture. It all verges on being a bit cold and boring. What doesn’t help its cause is that the whiskey bar is downstairs and the open kitchen is hidden in the back corner.

Once seated I couldn’t resist a bottle of Lone Star (£5) after being hooked on True Detective. It’s the type of beer that deserves to wash down spicy finger food. The food here is too refined for that. To kick things off we were given a slice of decent bread and butter made from rendered pork fat or something like that (although it just tasted like normal unsalted butter to me) was good brioche-like stuff. Then came the starters. Literally within 30 seconds of ordering them they came. This really pisses me off, and is the third restaurant in London in the last few weeks that have fired out the food. The Wedge Salad (£8) was a big old thing with plenty of boiled eggs. It only got interesting when I got to the bottom though and got all the creamy dill sauce. The rest of it was basically just iceberg, eggs and crispy bacon bits.

The catfish gumbo (£9) had plenty of going on with a good hit of heat. This was more like the food I’d been expecting. Just a shame it came so quickly.

For main the pork belly was hardly the biggest cut and I would have preferred a bit of crispness on the skin. The sauce was too sweet for my liking, making the whole dish a bit maple-syrupy and just a bit sickly.

The fried chicken was 2 legs that had a great crispy coating and were succulent. But really only 2 legs? This was part of a set 3 course deal, but it was still around £17 for the main course. A side of coleslaw was decent and the collard greens were tasty but it didn’t blow me away.

The cornbread (£6) is probably the most fattening and indulgent side order in London. It’s basically a Medeira cake with extra butter melted all over it. For a few bites this is a great thing, but it’s a bit too close to cardiac arrest territory for me. Still wolfed the lot though.

I wasn’t given a dessert menu, instead my partner’s dessert (from the set menu) came straight away. It was a ‘deconstructed’ (how very modern of them) lemon merignue pie, and was top notch. The meringue was like the best marshmallows cooked over a fire and then that sharp tang of the lemon sitting beneath it.

So the meal came to an end within an hour. This absoloutley ruined the meal. I’ll begrudgingly accept this whole 2 hours turnover time, but for £50 a head I want to be in there for longer than an hour. It was also overpriced. Some bottles of beer were around the £7 mark and wine soon shot above £40 a bottle. Even the food, which wasn’t exactly Southern sized portions, didn’t merit the price tag. I wanted to love this restaurant, but sadly it was all a bit forgettable.

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Neil Rankin was the Scottish chef in the baseball cap on the latest Great British Menu who made bold statements about fine dining being dead, and it now being all about big hearty cooking. I’m certainly with him on this, and I’d happily swap any molecular gastronomy for a good slab of meat any day of the week. But sadly for him, the judges, or rather creepy Jeremy Lee, didn’t buy it. His indoor BBQ heart-on-the-sleeve style of cooking was thrown to the kerb and so he’s back in the kitchen at Smokehouse.

I’d always wanted to try this place, but the far end of Upper Street is a ball ache to get to for me, even if the promise of wholesome smokey food is tempting. But spurred on by his Great British cameo, we booked a table for Sunday lunch. On a sunny day with a packed beer garden of Yuppies there’s a great laid back vibe, topped off by the superb staff who refreshingly actually gave a shit about where they worked and what they were serving. Our waiter was even giving me beer pairings and all his reccomendations were spot on.

To start things off I had the smoked potted duck and sourdough. It was a decent start to the meal, but I wanted more of that smokiness to come through.

My partner went for the courgette flower with blue cheese and honey on the waiter’s recommendation. This was an excellent starter- light, sweet and with plenty of depth coming through from the blue cheese.

Then came the roasts- I opted for the Roasted pork rib eye & smoked shoulder (£16.50) which had all the makings of a classic and was packed with flavour, but there wasn’t enough of it. There needed to be more of the smoked shoulder to balance out the various sweet purees, and just simply more roasties and veg. It also felt like it had been standing there for 30 minutes, which given our 3pm table time, it could well have been. There was just a limpness to it, like it was the leftovers from the various dishes that had been slapped on the plate.

The Roasted Highland beef (£18) fell at the same hurdles. First up the beef was cut to thin, making it a little bit Toby Carvery, and less like the prime cut of Highland beef that it was. It also meant that whilst it came perfectly medium rare, the central section of the beef was just a bit chewy. There again wasn’t enough of it. If Neil Rankin is going to come out on national TV and say it’s the era of big hearty dishes, then he needs to think about upping the size his meat portions here first. The Yorkshires were also crap. They were cold and dry as if they had been lying on a counter for an hour. They hadn’t risen anywhere near enough to give that big rustic homemade feel, and instead these were more Aunt Bessie, rather than a fitting part of a high end London roast.

I was still happy though and cleaned the plate. I’m only grumbling about the portions because I’m a greedy bastard. But I’d set the bar high and had hoped for slightly better. But then came the desserts. First up was the T-cake or the Double D Tart- their name doesn’t give much away- which ever of the two it was, it was nougat, choclate ganache and pistachio ice cream.

This was topped by the Sticky toffee apple cobbler (£6.50) which is hands down is the most satisfying pudding I have eaten. Sticky toffee pudding at the best of times is a nailed on winner. Throw caramel apples into the equation with vanilla ice cream and you don’t get much better.

The bill came to around £75 for a few drinks and a three course Sunday roast. This isn’t exactly cheap, especially given the roast itself wasn’t the best. But I still loved Smokehouse. I imagine that Sunday lunch sees the menu at its most boring, and no doubt the a la carte plays up the smokehouse name much more. It’s a restaurant that made me want to come immediately back, half because I absolutely loved it and half because I felt that I missed out on the main event and need to give it another try before casting judgement.

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It is hard to imagine a more spectacular setting to dine than at the top of the Eiffel Tower. Rumour has it Kim and Kanye- sorry Kimye- are thinking about holding there pre-wedding meal here. That’s whether Kim’s huge arse can fit in the tiny lift that carries you half way up the tower. Or Kanye’s ego for that matter. The restaurant is Le Jules Verne, another in kind Ducasse’s crown, carrying another Michelin star for his collection.

Inside is somewhere between a spaceship and a fine dining restaurant. But it’s not the decor you come for, it’s the views, and there’s no denying that they are spectacular. Admittedly Paris can’t boast a skyline like New York, but you can see all the way out to Sacre Coeur. This probably explains why the prices are so cripplingly high. There was nothing other than a 5 course tasting menu, with a main choice of either fish or meat, for €185. And this was the lunch menu.

To start lemon marinated sea bream, gold caviar, mimosa garnish.

Then a lobster bique, served as a gazpacho, with orange and a stunning watercress mousse.

The asparagus starter was cooked in the same tender way as Le Meurice, but I preferred this because it came with cheese and a truffled mousseline and was absolutely delicious.

Then came either Blue lobster with sauteed vegetables, which was easily the best lobster dish I have ever tried.

Or beef with souffleed potatoes (basically the best puffed up crisps in the world)and foie gras, which might well be the most rich and pleasing beef dish I have tried.

Then came a wild strawberry and lime palet with passion fruit and ginger sorbet, that was simple and refreshing.

Followed by the heavier praline and chocolate dessert, that was unbelievably rich and again faultless.

The food didn’t stop here and with the coffee came an a selection of excellent petit-fours.

The food was better than 3 Michelin star Le Meurice in my opinion and there wasn’t a dish that wasn’t of the highest standard. The view alone is worth coming for, even if that is going to cost you around £200 a head for lunch. If Kim and Kanye do choose this place, then it will inevitably be swamped by tourists for the rest of its days and you’ll never be able to give it a try. So get in while you can.

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Getting to the Big Easy on a Friday night reminded me why I always try to avoid eating in Covent Garden. It’s a certain type of tourist who crowds to this part of London. A bit like the ones who go to Camden. What exactly is it they are going to see? The central arcade is boring after 2 minutes, just like the trashy Camden market is. Instead they all just crowd around snapping photos of everything and getting in the way of the unfortunate Londoners who have somewhere to get to. Big Easy fits perfectly into the Covent Garden mould. It’s huge for one, and also the perfect mix of completely false with quite trendy. It’s very much like Balthazar in this respect, another restaurant in the area which is trying to be the authentic New York-French brasserie, and has spent millions trying to achieve this look, but in the end just falls short.

We were given the worst table in the restaurant. It was essentially hidden from the eyes of any waiter. Well that’s the only reason I can think why they ignored us for the first 35 minutes. That’s right, 35 minutes before we got a drink. I had to ask 3 waiters for a drinks menu before one came, and 4 different waiters for water, which didn’t come until we had finished the meal. And of course they employ that 2 hour rule, which would be fairer if they didn’t take nearly an hour to take the order. To say the service was a disaster would be an understatement. This was comically bad.

But in a group of 4- this place is made for groups, not a quiet date- once the beer was flowing we stopped caring about the useless staff, and enjoyed the brash vibe. A huge sharing plate (£19.50) kicked things off. How this could possibly be for 2 people as it recommends on the menu, I do not know. You’d have to be American to finish these portion on your own. It wasn’t anything special. I mean it was perfect, but only because everything deep-fat-fried is. Chicken wings, big battered shrimps, calamari,and Hush Puppies (deep-fried cornmeal batter and chilli jam). It tasted exactly like the sharing platter you’d get at somewhere like Sports Cafe in Leicester Square. Something that big kitchens churn out all day without thought or effort. But with plenty of beer (which hits you at £5.50 a bottle here) this is the exactly the type of food you want.

Next up things got considerably better, and considerably bigger. The Bar.BQ Blow Out(£17.95 per person) was Flinstone size portions of meat. There was enough meat to see you through the week. The ribs were stunning. Big fat juicy things with plenty of flesh to dig into. Then there was 2 giant hunks of chicken with charred crispy skin and juicy flesh. As if there wasn’t already enough pork, there was a pot of pulled pork, that was a good attempt, but didn’t have enough smokiness for my liking. The cornbread was rich and fatty, and the side of coleslaw and pit-smoked beans did a job.

The Lobster Fest (£20) is either a 1 lb lobster roll or a full lobster, with fries, salad and a pint of beer. Choosing the lobster roll this was one heavy thing, packed with juicy lobster flesh. It wasn’t as good as the Burger & Lobster version, but still no let down. It was just a bit heavy, as if they thought packing in more and more meat would make it better. Something like this needs a lighter touch. And 2 portions of chips? Who’s getting through all them.

The Lobster Bake (£19.50) was another huge dish, this time packed with seafood- Half 11⁄2 lb Lobster, Peel ‘n’ Eat Jumbo Shrimp, Mussels, Crab Claws & New Potatoes, with Hot ‘n’ Spicy or Garlic White Wine Sauce. Just reading that tells you there’s a load of food. I’d hate to see how much food gets scraped in the bin here because nobody on any of the tables was finishing. Some people will love this, but I wish they’d just cut back a bit and spend more time making sure it all tasted great.

It would have been impossible for us to try a dessert. We were so full that we had to cancel the night out we had planned. There’s no easy way to do Big Easy. No way to cut back here. It’s the most American sized portions I’ve seen outside of America.There’s a lot to love and hate about this restaurant. It’s obviously not for everyone, and isn’t somewhere you’d come often, mainly because you’d likely die if you did. It’s very in-your-face loud and brash. But at times I love this. The food was as good as it gets for this type of cooking. It was also great value given just how much you get- the bill came to £45 a head with 3 pints each. Given the rest of the restaurants in Covent Garden, you can do a lot worse than just accepting Big Easy for what is is, and coming here.